Thailand

More unhappy Muslims

The new government seeks new ways to pacify the violent south

THERE is no monument in the southern Thai village of Tak Bai to the dozens of protesters slaughtered by the government on October 25th 2004. On the second anniversary of the killing, Tak Bai's streets were quiet and there were few army or police patrols to be seen. Have the locals forgotten this outrage, the worst bloodshed since the insurgency in Thailand's Muslim south mysteriously reignited earlier the same year? No, says an anxious fishmonger at the village market: it is just that people are afraid even to talk about it.

The Tak Bai killings, and the southern unrest as a whole, are puzzles for which there are more questions than answers. It is unclear why the arrest of six village guards, accused of passing their weapons to separatist militants, stirred a huge protest, involving perhaps 1,500 people. The response of the security forces was vicious even by their ugly standards. First, troops opened fire on the mob, killing at least six (locals say more). Then they crammed hundreds of protesters into trucks, causing 78 to die, mostly of suffocation, as they were driven to a distant army barracks.

Two years later, it is unclear who is behind the almost daily rounds of bombings and shootings of soldiers, police, monks, teachers and other Buddhist civilians that plague southern Thailand. Security experts list Muslim separatist groups—some long-established, others whose existence is moot. Many say the violence is orchestrated by drug lords and other criminals, or by Thai politicians and the security forces themselves. Abdulrahman Abdulsamad, a local Muslim leader, says a mixture of all these factors is most likely to blame.

Violence has flickered in the south ever since Thailand annexed the region, which was formerly an independent sultanate, in 1902 and began trying to assimilate its mainly Malay-speaking Muslim people into a Thai-speaking, Buddhist nation. In the past three years, more than 1,700 have been killed by suspected militants, the security forces and unknown assailants. Three days before this week's anniversary, a soldier was killed by a bomb as he guarded monks begging for alms in Narathiwat city, the capital of the province in which Tak Bai is situated. Four days later, gunmen opened fire outside a mosque in a nearby village, killing an imam.

Earlier this year, Thaksin Shinawatra, the then prime minister, gave the army commander, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, “full authority” to quell the unrest. But General Sonthi, a rare Thai Muslim in a senior post, wanted to negotiate with the rebels; Mr Thaksin did not. This may have been one reason for the coup that the army chief led last month. Surayud Chulanont, a retired general and now interim prime minister, promises a softer approach to the conflict.

In the past week he has toured neighbouring countries, seeking advice on the conflict. In Jakarta, Mr Surayud said the peace process under way in Indonesia's breakaway Aceh province would serve as a model. In Kuala Lumpur, he won promises of co-operation from Abdullah Badawi, the prime minister of Malaysia, which Mr Thaksin used to accuse of sheltering militant leaders. It was revealed that Mr Badawi's predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, had been brokering secret talks between Thai officials and southern separatists even before Mr Thaksin's downfall.

Not long before the current spate of violence, Mr Thaksin abolished the civilian-led agency that oversaw the southern provinces. It had been credited with improving relations between the government, the security forces and local Muslims, especially by trying to root out many corrupt and brutal local soldiers and police. Mr Thaksin believed this agency had outlived its purpose; the new government is reviving it. Mr Abdulrahman, the Muslim leader, says he is encouraged by this and by the military government's appointment of Muslims to various jobs. He wonders, however, whether a serious peace deal is possible, given the uncertainty over who is actually behind the attacks.

Whether or not peace talks can get anywhere, the government could do much more to soothe southerners' fear and mistrust. Francesca Lawe-Davies of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, notes that no police or army personnel have been prosecuted over the Tak Bai killings, while many of the protesters are still detained, two years later, over minor accusations. Many southerners might accept autonomy instead of independence if they felt they had a modicum of justice.